Perhaps there was something he saw as a threat to his writing lately. . not a concrete threat, no one wanted to hinder him. Perhaps it was enough that since recently there were people in town who recognized him as a writer. Yes, they affirmed him in his capacity as a writer; it was a challenge he had yet to live up to.
They dealt him the death blow at the factory by coming to visit one day. He had the early shift that week, and on Friday he topped off his tardiness by arriving at the factory two hours late. The foreman came up to him pale in the face; W., prepared for a royal dressing-down, was surprised by his long-time boss’ trembling voice; he’d never heard him talk that way before. The foreman mumbled, barely audible in the drone of machinery, that he shouldn’t bother changing his clothes, he’d been expected up in the engineers’ office for an hour already.
The management office’s two adjoining rooms had been cleared of all staff; two engineers and three female typists huddled by the window at the end of the corridor, leaning silent and shamefaced on the sill, expelled from their power’s abode; they ignored W.’s greeting as he came up the stairs. In the back office, the inner sanctum, sat the breezy gentleman in the distinctive grey suit, and the same gangling assistant who’d once towered over W.’s doorframe, dressed in a green ski anorak of a quilted, silkily gleaming fabric blend. There was no leather coat hanging on the manager’s coat stand, just a medium-length beige suede jacket with a fur collar.—W. was horrendously sleep-deprived and barely capable of following the breezy gentleman’s words — he kept asking himself: Just who am I looking at now. . which member of that grey-clothed series, or is there just one of them with six different grey suits? — and besides he didn’t feel like following the chatty conversation he started (meanwhile the younger man in the anorak confined himself to nodding his close-cropped head, either earnestly or smilingly, as required by his superior’s casually reeled-off words). It wasn’t exactly a mystery to W. why the conversation had to take place here in the factory, since it seemed to concern absolutely nothing new or urgent; besides, it wasn’t a conversation, since W. barely responded. . he was busy mulling over the consequences of the visit, which had to have been noticed down in the production hall — of course they’d all noticed it, and if he wasn’t mistaken, that was the very purpose of the visit.
Indignant at this dirty trick, W. didn’t absorb a thing until the end of the conversation. . he feebly recalled it centring on the understandable woes of a factory like this one, all attributable to the labour shortage; in concrete terms, for the past several years, each winter people from the assembly department has been assigned to the boiler house, where there was a lack of stokers; for the past two winters W. had been one of these people, which he liked just fine, for one thing because in the boiler room he was largely left unsupervised. . the gist of the conversation was as follows: with all due respect, in the long run it was hard to sympathize with such measures because they kept people from developing their potential. These words having prompted the underling’s last earnest nod for a time, the senior visitor laid a slender booklet on the table, bound in glossy black pasteboard, and pointed the cigarette he’d just lit (smoking was strictly prohibited in the manager’s sanctum) at the title: Full Steam into the Morn. It was a ‘Workshop Anthology of the Railroad Workers’ Literary Working Group’, as the caption declared; the working group met in the district town of Z., where the brochure had been published.
Take a look at this! said the breezy gentleman.
Reluctantly W. leafed through a few pages in the middle, at arm’s length and without picking up the booklet from the table; he made out sequences of words arranged in lines and stanzas; he snapped the booklet shut again.
Putting it bluntly, we think these publications. . almost all of this type of thing. . are crap, if you’ll pardon my French! said the gentleman. Of course you do, too, and I’m sure you don’t want to be published in there. Still, it would be a first step, and besides, you’d be an enormous asset for a book like that.
Then at least there’d be something readable in it! the younger man in the green anorak piped up for the first time.
Now the older man nodded: And we wouldn’t have to keep butting in! Or asking the people to at least change their completely ridiculous titles, like we did here.
The young man in the green anorak gave a short laugh and explained the last statement: they were stuck between two titles. One was Full Steam into the Morn, the other was Full Steam into the Light of Morn. So we said to them, if you can’t even decide in favour of a diesel locomotive, that is, progress, then at least you have to take: into the Morning!
Well, anyway! said the older man. All that would be completely unnecessary if, for instance, you were the head of this working group. Still, we wouldn’t want to talk you into heading a circle like that, as a rule you’d be dealing with a bunch of philistines. The only option would be to get you excused from work more often, you ought to be given the latitude to do cultural work. That would be something to think about, although — and I’ll say it quite frankly — it’s my view that you should focus entirely on writing. And this work here. . every winter, in this boiler house. . we’ve taking the liberty of having a look inside. . your know-it-all colleagues can perfectly well do this work by themselves.
You’ve been doing it much too long already, you have enough experience to go on! the young man added.
But seriously, we’ve got better things in mind for you, the older man said; he slid the booklet back in W.’s direction and rose to his feet. You can take that if you want.
W. pushed away the anthology in disgust and said: No. . I’ve already decided against it. I’m not going to stay on at the factory anyway. And I’m not going to stay in this town either.
Where are you planning to go? asked the breezy gentlemen; the two were already standing at the door, only W. was still sitting where he was. To the city, to Leipzig or Berlin?. . Berlin would be the best place for you, of course. And you’d be rid of me there. . and I of you, I’d be very sorry about that. But let us know in time about a flat in Leipzig or Berlin.
I think I could picture Leipzig, W. replied.
For the most part W. had liked working in his factory, though at times he could hardly take all the conflicts. But never to see his colleagues again. . suddenly the prospect was unbearable. In truth he’d loved them all in some inexplicable way, with all their mulishness and sheep-like stupidity, their meekness and arrogance, with all their morose and paranoid thoughts. Now they made as though they didn’t want to see him, now the grey began to show beneath his black sheep’s coat; dogged as they were, they’d finally scratched it free.
Down in the production halls the atmosphere was glacial, and he went about like a somnambulist; the wall of hostility he faced had acquired a menacing aspect. . all day the foreman was nowhere to be seen, everyone knew that endless deliberations were being held up at management. . he could have bet that he was one topic of discussion there. The secretary from the foreman’s office, well aware of the ugly mood, accosted him shortly before quitting time: Next week you’re going back to the boiler house. Take the night shift for three weeks, then you’ll be out of the firing line. That’s how we’re fixing it.—W. was relieved. . Do you think I’m talking to them voluntarily? he asked. — No idea! Anyway, you’re doing it, and that’s what everyone thinks. I’d think about it, if I were you. By the way, I’m not supposed to tell you, but you can probably figure it out for yourself — the foreman would be happy to accept your notice any time!